The four common ways to split
Most couples use one of these methods, or a mix of two. None is more correct; what matters is that both of you understand and agree to it.
1. Half and half
Every shared cost is split 50/50. It is simple, easy to check and works well when you earn roughly the same. When incomes are far apart, the person who earns less can end up spending a much larger share of their money on the same rent and groceries.
2. Proportional to income
Each person pays a share that matches their part of the total income. If one of you earns 60% of what you bring in together, they cover 60% of shared costs. Many couples find this fairer when salaries differ. It does mean talking openly about income, and updating the shares when a salary changes.
3. A joint pot for shared costs
Both of you put an agreed amount into a joint account or a shared kitty each month, and rent, bills and groceries come out of it. Everything else stays in your own accounts. This keeps day-to-day accounting light, but you still need to agree how much each person puts in, which brings you back to methods 1 or 2.
4. Itemised, by who uses what
Each cost is assigned to the person it is for: your gym is yours, their phone plan is theirs, the shared groceries are split. It is the most precise method, but it needs more care, especially with a mixed supermarket receipt.
How to choose a method
Start with three questions. Do you earn similar amounts? Do you want to keep most money separate, or mostly combine it? And how much bookkeeping are you both willing to do? Similar incomes and little appetite for detail point to 50/50. Different incomes point to a proportional split. If one of you hates tracking, a joint pot for the big shared bills is often the easiest start.
Whatever you pick, try it for two or three months and then look at it together. A method that felt fair in theory can feel wrong in practice, and changing it is normal.
What counts as shared
Most disagreements are not about the method but about what goes into it. Write down together which categories are shared. Rent or mortgage, utilities, groceries and household supplies are usually shared. Personal clothes, hobbies and gifts for each other are usually not. Grey areas deserve an explicit answer: eating out, holidays, the car one of you drives more, pets, and gifts for each other's families. Agreeing once saves the same discussion every month.
Settle up regularly, and keep some spending private
Whoever pays at the till changes from day to day, so a balance builds up. Settling it regularly, monthly for example, keeps the amount small and the conversation short. Waiting for months turns a few small payments into one large debt that is harder to talk about.
Sharing costs does not mean sharing everything. Each partner having some spending that is simply their own, with no need to justify it, is healthy. A good system lets you keep those expenses out of the shared balance without hiding anything that affects it.
Talking about it
Pick a calm moment, not the day a big bill arrives. Talk about the goal rather than past grievances: a split that feels fair and takes little effort. Agree on the method, the shared categories and how often you settle up, and keep the numbers visible to both of you.
How SpendWe does it
SpendWe is built for exactly this. Creating a household and inviting your partner is free, on iPhone, iPad and Android. You choose the default split once: Equal for 50/50, or Proportional to your incomes. With a proportional split, the incomes you type stay on your phone; only the resulting percentages are shared with the household (see the Privacy Policy). Home then shows the rule in words, such as "Default split: 50/50".
Each expense can follow the household rule or have its own split: all for one person, custom amounts or custom percentages. On a scanned receipt, each item can be marked Mine, Yours or Ours; choosing who each receipt item is for is part of SpendWe Pro, which is planned and not on sale yet (see pricing). More on scanning receipts.
Home shows Who paid what and who owes whom. Settle up lists suggested payments that clear the shared balance, and How it's calculated shows, for each person, what they paid, their share, the payments sent and received, and the net. A row marked Private to me is seen only by you and never counts in the shared balance. Remind opens your phone's share sheet with one sentence naming the amount; SpendWe sends nothing itself. Coming from Splitwise? You can import your group's export. The full picture is on the shared expenses page.
